


Dreamless

by Connan-T (Connan)



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Anxiety, Cigarettes, Depression, Depressive Thoughts, Drama, Gen, Nostalgia, Self-Reflection, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connan/pseuds/Connan-T
Summary: There are days like that where Cul feels empty. Blank moments, where waking up the morning becomes dull, where going to sleep the night becomes dreary. But whenever she would fix her gaze into this woman’s starry gaze she thought that despite everything, she had to go on living…
Relationships: CUL & galaco (Vocaloid)
Kudos: 4





	Dreamless

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Dreamless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20329303) by [Connan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connan/pseuds/Connan). 



> Translation of an old French fic I wrote as a teen, because I missed doing translations. It’s a bit embarrassing to work again on such an old piece and I don’t think I did a good job haha, but oh well.
> 
> It’s a fanfic I wrote when I was like, fourteen or fifteen years old, and so it must date from around 2013.  
> I just found it back recently, and I didn’t have the heart to threw it away, so…
> 
> Content Warnings: Smoking, and depressive thoughts, I guess.

The elevator came to a stop on the last floor with a ringing that resembled to the sound of a hoarse bell. 

Cul got out of the small area in a weary step, followed by a big man she didn’t know and by a woman with spindly legs whose high heels resonated against the pavement like the timer of an old clock. C ul let a sigh escape her, then looked at her watch reflexively: it was almost seven in the evening. 

All while enumerating the content of her poor fridge to attempt to see what she could warm up tonight, C ul penetrated slowly in the  lobby and pushed her workplace’s door. As she went out, she felt the evening breeze brush her fa c e and bring back her red hair. She  took a deep breath. Having not gone out all day, it was nice to retrieve some fresh air. She observed a moment the horizon that took shape in front of her, while the sky was already black. It was winter, so there was nothing surprising about the sun setting down early.

“Cul! Are you leaving?” resounded a voice in her ears, as she regained awareness of her environment. 

The redhead turned her head around and saw her friend, Kokone. A smile of an infinite sweetness was painted on her face, giving her false nymph airs. Her cheeks reddened by the wind, she was clothed of a thick beige coat and of a pale pink scarf, while her head was shoved in her shoulders because of the cold that was making her shiver. Her hands bundled up in her sleeves were holding a scalding cup — of coffee, chocolate or tea, C ul didn’t really know.

It was after a few seconds spent taking in the details of Kokone’s beautiful hazel eyes — so clear they seemed  transparent — that C ul finally decided to move to join her, her eyebrows knotted together in interrogation.

“You’re still here? How come?” She accosted her. 

“I’m working overtime,” Kokone said softly in a false playful tone. “But I shouldn’t stay here much longer. Yohio will come to walk me back, and I think we’ll go eat something outside…”

“I see.”

Kokone brought the cup to her lips, rekindling the scent that emanated from it to Cul’s nostrils. It was chocolate. 

“You don’t want to stay a bit and eat dinner with us?” she proposed gently once her sip finished, offering her a smile.

Cul returned it, but  declined :

“I’m tired, I’d rather go home.”

As she saw Kokone’s face was going to  wither like a flower in autumn at her sentence, she hurried to add, in a more  dashing tone:

“Another time!”

And the young woman nodded, still a bit disappointed. Cul wished her good luck  in prevision of the time she had left to spend at the office before her boyfriend c a me, then they said good bye respectively and Cul began to  squash the snow that covered Yokohama’s streets with her soles. 

The city was rather quiet this evening. No, in fact it was like that in general,  during this season. Winter forced people to stay at home, anesthetizing the districts’ usual agitation. And, to say the truth, Cul understood them: she had never really liked winter, ever since she was  small . Cold, snow, gray sky — all of that depressed her a little. In the streets, a few passersby clad in scarfs, bonnets and gloves hurried on the sidewalks, while cars — sometimes gray, black or white — w ere melting the snowflakes spread out on the tar under the strength of their wheels. 

After a few minutes of walking, Cul took a street corner that leaded to a metro entrance. She knew the way by heart now, she had been reproducing it down to the millimeter for well over three years. Once she arrived on top of the stairs, she leaned on a wall, rubbed her arms, then  pulled out a cigarette she lit up thanks to a new black lighter she had bought the day before. The last one, of a whi t e color decorated with purple flowers her mother had given her, had broke down. Cul wasn’t a big smoker, but she’d have a smoke from times to times as a way to evacuate some stress her job as a pen-pusher provided her. Her gaze skewed, she turned her head around a little, and there, like every evening when she’d took the time to stop a few seconds at the metro entrance, she saw her.

This woman.

Cul thought she must around her age, in other words not yet in her thirties — though maybe a little younger. That woman, she had tremendously long, smooth hair, which clutched her entire body until her bottom, of a strange caramel color more or less darker depending on the locks, probably testifying of former hair dyes — especially around her bang, where Cul could clearly distinguish some discolored red, blue and yellow left. 

She was sitting at the bottom of a wall, alone under the snow, her gaze melancholic and set on the ground. A very ugly bonnet made of rough-hewn wool pointed at the top of her  head , flattening her straight bangs on her eyes which made them look darker. She was dressed with a big blue, denim coat which was torn up and damaged, itself wrapped of a thick blanket and, as she was completely folded back on herself, from afar it made her look like a big, inelegant  ball of fabric. 

Her face was thin and angular, her skin pale and  itchy because of the freezing wind, and her eyes, brown, filled with stars, shined with memories that Cul couldn’t even suspect existing. From time to time, her gaze would lit up, her features, usually  dry and  rough , relaxed, and she lifted her head a little; staring at the people bustling around her who didn’t even bother to give her an ounce of attention. Then, as if disappointed, her eyelashes would f a ll back on her eyes, and she’d bur y  her head in her knees. 

Cul didn’t remember how long she had been there. A long time, in any case. She didn’t remember either why that young woman had caught her attention. She knew nothing about her, had never talked to her,  or even approached her, and she would just spy on her every other day during a cigarette’s time.

She had caught herself making up stories about her, building her a past. She imagined her, this nameless woman, as a former idol; a fallen star, dropped from the heavens and spotlights, whose downfall had been as rapid as the ascen sion . She could see her dancing, singing out loud, wearing a pink dress with glitters, under an unbridled and euphoric public with all the confidence and energy she could  display. She drew her a tragic childhood, worthy of a mystery novel’s protagonist, with murdered parents, a perilous adolescence in order to seek herself, triumphing over obstacles to finally realizing her dream, before seeing all her hopes shattering like glass in the face of the terrible show-biz work and of their society’s corruption. 

Cul had even given her a nickname. 

Galaco.

Because it blended in with galaxy.

Because this woman had stars in her eyes. Stars that described years of  a past life which Cul ignored everything of.

Because those stars were still shining. 

And that it made her beautiful.

* * *

Cul sank into her chair with a sigh. She lifted up the tip of her pen that she was holding firmly between her teeth in front of her nose, then detailed the features of her office neighbor, the pretty Aria. She had her brow furrowed, her blue eyes fixated on her computer’s screen as she seemed to be up against a filling of paperwork rather  tough . Filling paperwork. That was what they were doing all day long here, in these offices full of bursting of lost ringt ones and of people walking  at a rattling pace through the hallways.

Cul wondered from times to times, when her mind  would go astray , what the hell she was doing here. Where had her childhood dreams, her teenage fier y and passions had gone to? When she was sixteen, she had the goal to become a rock star, an interplanetary singer, renowned artist who would tour the tabloids!

Ah. Big deal.  H er past self would laugh so much if she were to see her there, sat at a desk filling out percentage  charts which she barely knew the  meaning of.

It was little Yukari who pulled her out of her thoughts, when she brought tea to IA — Aria’s nickname at the office — as she seemed to be about to explode in front of her problem she presumably couldn’t solve. She still took the trouble to lift her head and to throw a smile  at the young purple-haired secretary when she  grasped her cup, while the other sent it back to her with a “good luck” that Cul could easily guess on her lips.

Cul liked her, that chick. She was the cutest thing, and unbelievably kind. Too kind for her taste. And it was never good to be too kind; not in this world,  anyway .

She shook her head, then decided to re-concentrate on her work.

* * *

Galaco’s gaze was focused on a man who was speaking to a woman today on the subway’s porch.

Cul found the woman funny; a pretty blonde with a huge cascade of curly hair. The man also had blond, but straight hair, and Cul suspected them to be siblings, or something similar. They seemed to be fighting. She saw multiple times the woman makes big gestures while groaning the other’s name in a Korean dialect; something like ‘Lwi’ or ‘Lui,’ as he stared at her with implacable cold blood.

Cul had a younger sister, too. A little Miki with bad character. They  were four years apart, and Cul didn’t see her much anymore, because she had gone abroad; somewhere in southern Germany, in Baden-Württemberg. They called every now and then, managed to see each other when Miki came back to Japan the time of a few vacations or days off. Her sibling would then tell her all about her Germanic escapades, because Miki was an adventurer; she was unable to stand still for a long time. Cul remembered the thousands of escapades they had made as children, as well as the thousands heart attacks they had given to their poor parents.

Miki always narrated her stories while making immense gestures and grimaces, as if to better immerse herself in the story, and sometimes, she even produced small noises, similar to some mouse’s squeaks of which she alone had the secret. Then, towards the end, she would always get a bit muddled up and randomly talk about diverse topics: she cited one by one her western friends, spoke of her apartment rent she never managed to pay in time, of Europeans, of German cooking, of the few lovers who never lasted very long. And once she judged it all over, she fixed her orange gaze in Cul’s, gave her a little smile, before asking while tilting her head “And you?”

And this question, Cul really didn’t like it at all. Because after all of this, she felt so stupid to tell her little sister about her days that all resembled each other within Yokohama: her endless weeks of pencil sharpening, cold coffees, computer screens tearing off her eyes, of passages in the subways swarming with people.

So, she would just smile and answer that “everything was fine.”

Quite the insipid answer compared to all of Miki’s embellished and demonstrative stories, but Cul couldn’t do any better. She couldn’t see how she could narrate her life with as much enthusiasm as Miki did.

Because Cul had not become a famous rock star as she had wished to as a teenager. She was a bureaucrat. And all bureaucrats ever did was to type keyboards and click computer mouses. Sugarcoating this whole thing up in pretty words wouldn’t change the fact that her reality was very dull. Explaining it to Miki, who had eyes so sparkling, filled with dreams and adventures wouldn’t either, because she wouldn’t understand a single damn word about it.

Although she had claimed the contrary to everyone: to her mother, to her father, to Miki, to Kokone and her boyfriend, and even to the pretty Aria and the cute little Yukari, Cul wasn’t turning a blind eye to the truth: she knew very well she was not happy.

She was not happy, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Therefore, this evening too, when she came back home and noticed an email from her sister who was at the moment in the middle of the Germanic capital, and that, after a sequence of the German countryside’s colorful pictures, Miki had ended up with a ‘And you, how are you?’ well then Cul had just answered ‘Fine,’ like every last time, and as she would every time to come.

* * *

“Hey, Cul, whaddya think of the second floor’s guy?” had asked her one day the strange Zunko, a lady with an alluring gaze.

Her thick, greenish  bang fell  over her eyes while she was rocking  i n her chair. Cul had never been able to  pin down this chick. She was behaving like a prepubescent child, seemed always out of it, ogled every male who had the misfortune to pass in the corner, and dressed and did her hair in a way so… so exuberant that Cul wondered how she managed to keep her job here.

The redhead narrowed her eyes while looking at her, and she noticed that Zunko  was holding a plastic cup of a substance she didn’t even want to know the name of and that she was tapping rigorously, as if she was following an imaginary music’s beat. Cul sighed.

“What guy from the second floor?”

Zunko pouted.

“Ya know: English with blond hair. A Dapple-something.”

Oh.

“Oliver Dappleback?”

“Yeah… Yeah, that one.”

“Hum…”

Cul thought for a second, then continued:

“I don’t think anything of him.”

Zunko puffed out her cheeks. She let herself fall back in her chair in a big, weighting ‘knock,’ then  put her elbows on her desk before resting her round cheeks on her palms with a  sulky look.

“Yer not funny, ya know that?”

She slapped her cheekbones.

“ _I don’t think anything of him_ ,” she said while imitating Cul’s tone in a chewed voice. “Seriously, I don’t even wanna imagine what yer love life looks like!”

Good, because Cul wasn’t inclined to share. First because she wasn’t particularly fond of Zunko, and second because there was nothing to share. Her love life had been at its deadliest point for some time now.

Oh, it didn’t mean she hadn’t tried. However, it seemed that Cul had inherited the same symptom as her sister regarding relationships: it never lasted very long. And she was far from being as persistent as her.

It was the same for her friends, too. As soon as she became an adult, she had cut ties with all of those she’d made during her school days, had moved in here, and end of the story. The only person she really had an affinity with other than her family was Kokone, whom she’d met at a convenience store one night before they realized they worked at the same place. She wasn’t trying to make new acquaintances, because it didn’t interest her. Oh sure, if she truly wanted to, she could probably become close to IA and Yukari, and even to Zunko and that Englishman from the second floor. But she wasn’t trying.

Nowadays, she had the sensation that letting someone new into her life would only render it even more boring.

Oh, yes, it would change… the first few months, maybe. Then, she knew herself well, she would get tired of it quickly.

Just like she had quickly gotten tired of this job. Just like she had quickly gotten tired of her family.

Just like she had quickly gotten tired of her life.

* * *

Cul turned her head, letting her unusually loose red hair interweave itself around her nape.

It was quarter past nine AM. Sunday. She wasn’t working. And she was lying in bed, wearing shirt and panties, her gaze empty and her arms stretched out like a star on her white sheets. Outside, it was raining softly, and the snow covering the pavement will then probably melt a little. Probably, because she she had not got up all day to confirm it.

Miki had left Berlin to head towards Düsseldorf. Kokone had spent the night at Yohio’s parents’ place. She’d told her it was the first time she was meeting them, and she was a little nervous. Cul also knew that her own parents had gone to the country’s north, today; somewhere near Sapporo’s countryside. She had remembered that because her parents didn’t go out much. She wondered at times how two people so cloistered in their home and closed off to the outside world had managed to give birth to someone like Miki, who at barely twenty-two years old had already visited seven different countries, known over fifty various cities, and a hundred of lost villages around the world.

She wondered where her sister managed to find the money for all these travels. They didn’t really talk about this when they saw each other. But to say the truth, she wasn’t really worried about this topic. Miki was the kind of person who always found a way out, no matter what complicated situations she might get stuck in.

With this idea in mind, Cul got up. As far as she could remember, she had nothing to do today.

Maybe she would go for a little walk.

* * *

In the end, it might not have been a good idea to go for a walk.

It was raining indeed, this morning. A little bit. But now that Cul had been strolling the sidewalks for about an hour, it wasn’t just raining a little, but  _a lot_ . So much that Cul felt like she was receiving an avalanche on her black umbrella — because yes, she at least had the lucidity of mind to take an umbrella before going out. Searching for a place to take shelter, she ran throughout the streets without paying attention to where she was going, before finally wedging herself against a wall under an apartment balcony. 

She sighed, raised her head and stood still for a moment, catching her breath. There, she analyzed her environments, and she realized that they seemed familiar. She recognized the street, the buildings, the metro entrance… and then Galaco.

How had she managed to end up here specifically without realizing it? The hazard was a very strange thing. 

She kept staring at her for a little while. The poor young woman was shaking under the cold, even more bundled up and folded in on herself than usual, so much that Cul could no longer see her face which was hidden by her damaged coat. She chattered her teeth, shivered, sometimes rubbed her hands and arms while the passersby were almost running on the sidewalks, trying to avoid the rain, evidently.

And when Cul saw her slowly sink down her head in his arms that encircled her knees, when she saw her shoulders slump with so much pain, her folded legs swaying as if trying to generate some warmth, then Cul felt bad while watching her.

She felt bad because, perhaps for the first time, she truly realized this person’s condition.

Even if it was true that she didn’t know anything about her, she didn’t have to be a genius to understand that if she stayed here almost every day, recluse on the ground, braving the cold and the snow, it was not for fun.

It was because she didn’t have a choice. It was because she didn’t have anywhere else to go, to sleep, to eat. Because she was alone.

Because besides Cul, no one seemed to care about her existence. She did not exist.

And these thoughts hurt Cul.

They hurt, because the fact of ignoring Galaco was natural.

Because Cul remembered that as a child, when her parents dragged her into town, she had always more or less seen these people who spent their nights outside despite the weather, and every time she’d lingered a bit her mother would pull her by the sleeve to remind her they had to go, that they didn’t have the time.

That they didn’t have time to give even just a glance to the poor being lurking on the floor, who nevertheless, in the eyes of little Cul, looked really like herself, her parents, her sister, her friends.

Because it was perhaps too painful, or above all too scary, to see a being as similar as them in such a state of loneliness and poverty. That it was better not to dwell on it, not to look, to continue walking with vanity as if these people did not matter, as if they couldn’t see them. 

As if they did not exist.

And that, at least by closing their eyes, they didn’t feel so concerned, so guilty.

They didn’t feel bad. 

And that therefore, it had become natural.

But it shouldn’t be. It should never be natural.

Suddenly, rage and disgust surged in Cul. A longing for justice, for redemption too perhaps, flew in her mind full of fog, and she felt the urge to scream, to tear out her hair, to hit the passersby and to break the walls.

She had the urge to run across the street, to pull Galaco by the hand, to get her out of this alleyway, bring her back to her place, to warm her up, talk to her, embrace her in her arms, take her outside Yokohama, outside of Japan, of Asia; in Germany, with Miki, to raise a revolution, to fix this world so that all that was natural would no longer be, and all that should be becomes so.

But she did nothing.

No, instead she just stood there, to stare at Galaco, to be in pain.

And it wasn’t until the rain stopped that she realized she was crying.


End file.
